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Hi and Lois, 3/27/26

A thing about Hi and Lois and comic strip time that you really have to keep in mind is that Hi and Lois has been in newspapers with Trixie as one of its characters since 1954, but Hi and Lois just had their youngest child within the last year. She’s a baby! She’s pretty much brand new! That’s why it’s deeply psychotic to see them grinning broadly about how happy their bird friend is about being an empty nester. You just reset that clock! You’re nearly two decades out from singing this cheerful tune! Are you not listening to yourselves?

Pluggers, 3/27/26

Pluggers sing in the shower so their spouse will know they’re OK, and choose lyrics to reaffirm the fact that they’re bisexual and polyamorous. Yeah, that’s right! It’s 2026 now! Pluggers are bi and poly! Get on their level.

Gil Thorp, 3/27/26

I’m willing to follow Gil Thorp to a lot of places, so I would’ve accepted it if the strip had told me that this year’s golf program was going to get mildly interesting. But very interesting? Nope. Not buying it. This is golf we’re talking about, c’mon.

Crankshaft, 3/27/26

I’m sorry if my last Crankshaft post gave you the impression that the title character would be slowly and tragically fading away into senility over the coming months. In fact, he’s going to be very rapidly but still tragically smeared all over the highway in the next few minutes. I regret the error.

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Crankshaft, 3/25/26

I like the combination of Crankshaft’s dopey smile and Keesterman’s look of genuine concern in the final panel. Consistently misspeaking like this isn’t normal and it isn’t funny, and I guess someone should tell the latter to Andrews McMeel Syndication, which sells this strip to newspapers all over the country.

Hi and Lois, 3/25/26

Wow, Hi’s face in that last panel is a lot less “Ha ha, the mayor wasn’t even able to get that ball over the plate!” and a lot more “Oh my god … the mayor somehow killed six and injured dozens more with an errant throw. This is awful. This is the darkest opening day in the history of Major League Baseball.”

Mary Worth, 3/25/26

I feel like logically we must assume that there’s an unseen third panel, where someone is fretting that Mary hasn’t reached out for a bit. Is it Wilbur? Probably Wilbur. He’s hit some new emotional low in a comical fashion and Mary is the last person he knows who won’t laugh directly in his face about it. Obviously there’s no unseen fourth panel, because nobody is worried that Wilbur hasn’t gotten in touch lately.

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Lockhorns, 3/16/26

Every once in a while the Lockhorns will deviate from their usual laser focus on Leroy and Loretta’s mutual antagonism and just do a “Ha ha, Leroy is a doofus” panel, and honestly I don’t care for it. At least this one includes Loretta looking at her husband with an expression of absolute despair, as she reflects upon exactly what type of man she chose to spend the balance of her adult life with.

Archie, 3/16/26

I was a pretty obsessive Archie Comics reader as a kid, but nevertheless there are bits of Archieverse lore that I’ve learned from the twentysomething-year-old newspaper strips currently in reruns. I don’t think I knew that Reggie was the editor of the student newspaper, for instance, nor that he was that classic type of late ’90s/early ’00s tech guy who had the skills to create an interactive website in the Web 1.0 era but was also obsessive about online privacy.

Crankshaft, 3/16/26

“Anyway, the one week I did it on the computer was last week, and it turns out computers are amazing. I’m definitely selling this drawing board, for a lot of money!”